Police identify suspect in SE Side shooting

Burned body also being investigated as homicide

Columbus police homicide detectives have filed a murder charge against a 20-year-old man for a fatal shooting Sunday afternoon inside a house on the Southeast Side.

Detectives also revealed Monday that they are investigating the discovery of a burned body last Wednesday as the city’s 190th homicide of 2021.

Police issued an arrest warrant Monday for Avonte M. Sanford, whose address on Gemstar Road is a couple blocks from the scene where 19-year-old Anthon M. Saunders Jr. was killed on the 6700 block of Alexdon Court in the Independence Village residential development.

Detectives said in a release Sunday that Saunders was with a group of men Sunday afternoon when the shooting occurred.

Two witnesses later told police they saw Sanford fire one shot into Saunders’ chest and flee the house, a Columbus homicide detective wrote in an affidavit

filed Monday with the arrest warrant documents. The motive for the shooting remained unclear.

The shooting was reported at 1:46

p.m. in the large residential development, located south of Tussing Road and east of Gender Road. Saunders had also lived in the same residential development, about a half-mile or 10-minute walk away.

Columbus Fire medics pronounced Saunders dead inside the home at 2 p.m. His death is the 189th homicide in Columbus in 2021.

Homicide investigators also reported Monday that a burned body found beneath an Interstate 670 overpass near the 500 block of Edgar Waldo Way had been declared a homicide Sunday by the Franklin County Coroner’s office.

The death is the 190th homicide in Columbus in this record year of killing, with more than two weeks remaining.

Police officers, homicide detectives and Division of Fire arson investigators responded to the scene last Wednesday and found a person burnt beyond recognition. The person was transported to the coroner’s office, which determined the victim was a male and the death was a homicide. Detectives had no further information or suspect.

Anyone with information regarding any of these incidents is asked to call the Columbus police Homicide Unit at (614) 645-4730 or Central Ohio Crime Stoppers at (614) 461-TIPS (8477).

Dispatch reporter John Futty contributed to this report. hzachariah@dispatch.com @hollyzachariah

HOLLY ZACHARIAH/COLUMBUS DISPATCH Columbus police say a man was shot to death Sunday afternoon inside a house on the 6700 block of Alexdon Court on the city’s Southeast Side. The death was the city’s record 189th homicide of 2021.